Spellbound
by HPluvah
Summary: Voldemort was Power. And as Hermione Granger, I hated him. LVHG, dark. No longer a one-shot!
1. Chapter 1

**==REVISED VERSION==**

**A/N: Howdy! So, I got enormously tired of reading LV "romances" where the leading lady loves him as "Tom," or transforms him to be at least a little good, or goes back in time and love the small good part of him left, or loves everything he does except for all the evil stuff that defines his character, or the authors that make him mind-numbingly OOC just because they think the old Tom was hott (as do we ALL). **

**I'm sorry, but I think that's ridiculous. I've been yearning for a true LV pairing that shows why someone would fall in love with him, and, honestly, why I'm in love with him (my affections are, sadly, unreturned). So, read your little hearts out, and feel free to vent all of your feelings by REVIEWING!**

**Also, I don't own HP, Voldemort does.**

**Spellbound**

_Chapter 1_

It was his power that drew me to him. It radiated off of him in beams that seemed to be shot straight at my heart; it was as if I was alone and frozen and he was the sun. I was helpless to resist.

It wasn't as if it was some intangible quality that he was helplessly given; he ingrained Power into himself, finding it, absorbing it, displaying it for the world as shamelessly as a whore displays her body. Voldemort was Power.

And as Hermione Granger, I hated him.

I was terrified, like the rest of them, enraged like the rest of them, disgusted like the rest of them… but there was always another level to my emotions about him.

I had noticed it in some of the other women at times, but none of them ever let their guard down. Voldemort was Evil above all else, and they were Good. They never felt any dichotomy about what they should do, about how they should feel about plotting the downfall of the greatest wizard of all time.

This was where I noticed I was separated from them. First, it was by the admiration I felt for him. The magic he was producing, the spells he invented, the way he twisted the old and new to form whatever he needed excited me more than frightened. Everyone else only saw the end result, not the talent and unimaginable intelligence getting those results required. In my fifth year, I discovered the second way I was different from the other Order members: I saw him that night at the Department of Mysteries. I watched Voldemort battle first Harry, then Dumbledore, and was transfixed. None of the others knew that I hid, disguised in a very un-Gryffindor-like way as my best friend battled against almost certain death.

I didn't show myself because I was lost to unimaginable and very ill-timed lust.

That entire year was Stress and Confusion above all else. Nothing made sense—the Ministry, the supposed Law Makers we had been taught to admire and obey, were being tyrannical idiots. I didn't know how to take this; Knowing and Following the rules had been of the canons of my character. They were my defining aspect—and that was all shattered.

So when I went to the Department of Mysteries that night I didn't know who I was. I was attempting unforgivables and using the dirtiest legal defensive magic I knew how. I had been wound so tight all year that all my fears and worries shot out of the tip of my wand in a blaze of cathartic rage. I was down to my most elemental aspect. All of my emotions were primal and inexplicable and my mind had been overcome by them. For the only time that I could remember, I didn't think.

And so when I came across the two of them fighting I only watched, hidden, bewitched.

At first I was frightened by the terrible snakelike wizard before me. Then, I was terrified for my dear friend who was being too quickly overcome. After that, my mind stopped thinking for a second. All I saw was the scene, all I felt was the magic surrounding them, and all I saw was him. Voldemort.

By now he was dueling with Dumbledore while Harry was frozen in the corner. Dumbledore was using all the strength and magic he possessed, but it wasn't to him that I was drawn.

Voldemort was holding back.

And I knew, then, what was going on. Just as I admired Voldemort, he admired Dumbledore. I heard the dark wizard's thoughts as surely as if they were his own—

What a horrible waste of a great wizard. It'd be a shame to kill him.

I watched as he performed magic I couldn't even dream of against the most lauded wizard in Europe—and to Voldemort, these were only parlor tricks! I could read it in his eyes like he was _Hogwarts, a History_—I saw the vague boredom, the desire he had for a challenge, and the conflicting respect he had for his closest second that existed.

That was when the lust hit.

Up to this point in my life, I had viewed sex as something that accompanied faithful, sweet love, an aspect of reproduction, something that the kids my age were beginning to explore. I had always looked in at it like an outsider; like a scientist doing a research study.

My relatively newly adult body had never felt the pure desire it had at that moment. My stomach clenched as I saw the graceful movements of his destructive wand; I had to blink to stop my vision from clouding as I watched his deliberate movements around the room; my chest heaved with ragged breaths as I saw the glint in his eye right before he performed a curse. The coil in my gut wound tighter until I was clutching the wall for support, bewildered and hindered by these new feelings.

This was the killer of hundreds! A man who employed the most evil methods imaginable for the most disastrous results ever seen! A murderer!

A conqueror.

And as abruptly and disturbingly as I felt this, my mind came back into focus. The battle was ending, people were running about, aurors were arriving en masse. I hurried back to where everyone thought I was lying unconscious from a curse—and he looked at me.

It's impossible, I know. I was disillusioned, and was rather good at the spell. Chaos surrounded them; he had just been thwarted again by "love," and was being steadily approached by aurors from every direction.

And yet he looked right where I stood, and gave a faint smile, if one could call whatever intent that laid behind that particular facial expression a smile. As quickly as I registered it, it and he were gone, abruptly disapparated from this mess in which I found myself.

I didn't have to fake my injuries; that was unfortunately real enough. I and several others were taken to St. Mungos. Everyone was in shock, so I didn't have to fake that either.

But while the others were haunted by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, I was only haunted by the unsought sensuousness of my body's conflicting reaction. His power and his murders weren't related somehow; my mind loathed his every incarnation, his every action, everything he represented. And yet somehow, my soul understood his need for power, the distances he was willing to go for knowledge. I thought about what he could do to his death eaters, the orders they would follow simply because he gave them, and swooned like a 13-year-old at a boy band concert.

Years passed, and no one knew of my feelings. I compartmentalized to the point of insanity; I wanted Harry to live, I also wanted Voldemort. _I'm a mudblood!_ I reasoned_. He'd kill me on the spot!_ But no logic I recited stopped my traitorous mind.

Even now, as I sit in his darkened prison, trapped between the cage of my thoughts and the one guarded by his own death eaters, I am helpless against my attraction. It is the most ridiculous thing I can think of to hinder me, the least logical reason for me to end up here, and the most atrocious way I could insult my friends.

My family.

My head rolls gently to the side, incapable of being supported by my tired neck. I feel my eyes beginning to water and struggle to keep any tears shed silent. I take a slow, deep breath and try to enjoy whatever un-nightmare-ish moment I am given.

Tomorrow, the interrogations will begin.

**Oui? Non? REVIEW! And lemme knizzle. Por Favor. Grazie. Danke. &c.**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: So I'm back! After a long break I was abruptly struck by inspiration, and the story continues! It's turned out to be in first-person, so I suggest you go back and reread the revised Chapter 1. Most of the content is the same, but I think it'll help with the flow if you can dig what I'm doing with perspective and past and present tenses. **

**I am enormously thankful to everyone who gave such supportive and interested reviews. I hope this story continues as you want it to. As always, I don't own anything from the HP universe, and be sure to review!**

**Spellbound**

_Chapter 2_

There's nothing to do but think.

Blackness stretches out the night and wraps me in nothingness. I stare into it; I try to see, but my eyes ache from the effort. I curl up and try to blend in, to be as nothing as the air that surrounds me, but I am an interloper, a flashlight in the darkness, a cactus in the sea. I drown in this prism of obscurity and can only try to swim.

I think how the blackness that I can't see is my future, that my soul is becoming as useless as my eyes. I try to remember what those deep-sea fish look like—the ones with swollen eyes to see what little light there is—and I imagine what I would look like with those eyes. Perhaps that's what I do look like now.

Sometimes I close my eyes because I know seeing's useless. When I move around the pitiful dimensions of my cell I don't want to be confused by the lack of perception my mind can draw.

Other times I do try to see, and give myself headaches from looking. Occasionally I convince myself I see something, far away. I create pictures in my mind, envision distant objects, always out of reach. I never see what they are clearly—I only know I want to find them. The disappointment that follows this keeps me from trying it too often.

One would assume I would be plotting ways of escape, that I would focus my mind on facts and the situation at hand to be better prepared for when I am free; I don't. Instead, I've become surprisingly poetic in this sightless world. Ideas are so much more potent when they're as fluid and unreal as the pregnant oblivion surrounding me. I think—sense, contemplate, ponder, meditate, ruminate, reckon, cogitate, imagine, reflect—that my soul is somehow tangible and effected by these circumstances. I can feel it move, I can see it (and how I relish the sight of it!). It bends around my mind like my 'bed' wraps around my body. The loose hay covered in old muslin does little to keep my limbs from the hard stone floor, but my soul is impenetrable and sinuous, finding all of me and shining like the light I can remember. My soul is in me and around me, anxious to escape the torturous confines of skin and sinew, anxious to join with the universe, and angry at me for keeping it here.

I calm it as best I can.

I wonder at my own sentience and that of plants, or of the pile on which I sleep. Are we really any different? A plant would wither in the darkness; the heap of hay and fabric is dead plants already, and makes no change.

I lay on myself, then, and wonder if I am to die or if I am already dead.

I think I am about eighteen years old. I say this occasionally, in my more rational moments, and wonder what it means. So old in life, so old compared to other beings that have a year or a season to know existence—and yet young, an infant, a germinating seed compared to life or to thought. So young and so old to be in such darkness.

Time is a convention that does not often fill my thoughts, not since I was first captured. I used to contemplated how long it had been, how long I might have left; I used to judge what a day meant to me, what a year did.

I have no window and irregular meals; days mean nothing. Hours only mean more ways to number the days, and minutes and seconds only add to that number. I will not give Voldemort any more numbers than I must.

And so I seldom think of time.

It is for that reason, when events occur that bring me back to time, sight, and my own presence, that they are especially jarring.

He opened the door and light came in like an old friend with bad news. His boot was the first thing I saw. It was brown.

I am—I was—frightened, but not of what he could do to me. I was frightened of leaving the cocoon of my mind for this too-tangible world of shape and form, of thought with action. My fear made me dumb, in all meanings: mute and empty I sat as I had been, looking at him with eyes with over-dark pupils, too new and worn to even flinch from the brightness he brought.

He said nothing, which was for the best; I doubt I would've been able to understand language at all at that point. I hadn't been thinking in words in some... _time._

In that way it began to return to me, the way Humans are. He pulled me down the hall with a firm grasp on my upper arm and I spoke in my mind to prepare myself for the words that would surely come. The halls were a blur, moving too fast for my weary eyes to understand, but my ears were well and attentive.

His breathing was even and determined; mine was weak and sporadic. The thick brown fabric of his pants and robe made soft noises as they met each other and bumped into the air. This noise reminded me of wind and I wondered how long it had been since I had heard that noise.

Time.

I don't know if the walk was short or long, or what those mean to me, but we arrived after a period to a room that was decidedly more accommodating than the one we had left. The floor was still stone, but the walls were plastered and painted and lined with bookshelves, art, and a large fireplace. There were wooden floor boards and crown moulding, and a wooden wainscoting on the lower third of the walls. There was a half-worn rug beneath over-stuffed chairs and a couch which radiated around a diminutive coffee table. There were flowers on an end table and a chess set in the corner.

It was then, after these words flooded into my mind unbidden that I remembered what this room was called:

A parlor.

Now I realize I should have felt shock at being brought to such a place, that I should have been suspicious or anxious to take advantage of whatever small luxury was temporarily available to me.

He regarded me with light green eyes. I noticed that his hair was blond-going-grey and his skin was a bit tan. He had small wrinkles around his eyes and mouth.

He said, "Don't touch anything."

I was alone abruptly, but only aware of my feet on the rug in the center of the room. I was barefoot, as I must have been, but only now that I could feel something did I realize it. The carpet was a caress for my feet, it was a pillow and a coat and told me secrets through whispering brushes of sensations I had forgotten. I was touching it.

Time passed again, as I stood feeling the carpet, transfixed. After a period, another door opened, this one on the opposite end of the room. My new eyes moved slowly up so they could take in everything.

It was another man, but this one I didn't need to describe to myself before he got an identity. _He is a man by loosest definition only, _my mind screamed too loudly, _he is a murderer, he is evil, he is the enemy!_ I flinched slightly from my body's reaction. The man's mouth curved upwards as he saw I knew he was Lord Voldemort.

My eyes saw the way the light curved a path along his pale skin as he inclined his head toward me. He looked the same.

The thoughts that had formed slowly and deliberately in my mind came now with disturbing speed. His reappearance set fire to my mind until only thoughts and facts of him were left. I analyzed, saw, felt everything he had ever done to me and my friends—to my family—and I was pulsing with anger.

Which he saw.

"Hello, Hermione Granger."

And there I was, completely covered in what felt like centuries of dirt and grime, standing miserably on his slightly-worn rug, in a perfectly respectable sitting room. He named me, and I became pitiful. He named me and I stood there awkwardly in my anger, a person, a human, a witch—he made me these with his words, he mocked what I once was, he mocked what I had become.

What I had become because of_ him_.

"Hello."

Was that my voice? That flimsy, pathetic thing? The syllables sounded foreign on my tongue. Did I even mean to say that? Surely I could have thought of something more forceful...

As I was thinking this—not used to juggling thought and reality—he moved closer and motioned to the sofa nearest to me.

"Have a seat. I can always have it cleaned later."

I considered talking back, but I was sorely out of practice, and after how amazing the rug felt, I couldn't imagine the sensory experience waiting for me.

So I sat, aware of the grime I was spreading, not caring as I sank into the heaven of cushions. I glanced up and he was seated across from me in one of the wing chairs, studying me with his calculating eyes. They were so very calculating... I thought of puzzles and people and our connection to the universe and then opened my eyes. He was watching me. It had become my practice to close my eyes when I thought; the images they created were far better than any darkness my cell allowed. Thinking quickly, flashing abruptly from philosophy to strategy, I realized I was giving him information just by my behavior. And I was making a spectacle of myself. And he was still watching me.

"Why am I here?" Words came at last!

"Would you rather be back in your cell?" He asked needlessly.

My eyes, if not already the size of a deep-sea-fish's, grew larger. "No! I only meant—Why am I here instead of there now?"

I realized that was not any clearer, but Lord Voldemort was apparently in a benevolent mood.

"I need you to do research for me. You are, I'm told, intelligent?" He looked to me in response.

My response was an expression that probably equaled the look of someone who was just hit rather hard by a bludger. Voldemort's expression wavered slightly; I took in that he was amused. I spoke quickly then:

"Why would I possibly do anything to help you?"

Expecting this, he continued with a slight nod of his head. "If you do not help me, you will be sent back to that little cell of yours and routinely tortured for five minutes every hour. Now, you could learn to sleep for short bursts, but it would be a short while before you would die from exhaustion. Not to mention, I'm sure the torture would interrupt whatever escapist fantasies have kept you going this long."

I'm sure my expression was frozen on my face. He left a pause for my commentary, then continued.

"If you do help me, you will stay in a room connecting to this one, given regular meals, decent clothes and a bathroom—where you can bathe, if you remember how."

If he expected this last bit to injure me, he was sorely mistaken; I'd lived with my stench long enough to be used to it. If it offended him, all the better.

"Additionally, you'll have access to all my books. When you're not doing research—which I recommend should be little of your time—you may look into whatever you wish. I'm not a complicated master. If you are good, you will be rewarded. If you are bad, you will be severely punished."

"I will never help you." My voice was firm again, and interjected proudly.

He looked entertained, as if he'd been expecting all of this. His eyes watched me as his mouth slipped into a smirk.

"Hermione Granger..." He voice slid over my name, "Yes you will."

As this statement seemed to be leading to a close in our conversation, I leaned back into the couch, determined to appreciate whatever luxury I had time for.

Voldemort rose from his chair and started toward the door from which he had entered. He turned and spoke one last time to me.

"You will be returned to your cell. It is currently eight o'clock in the evening. At eight o'clock tomorrow morning your guard will come. If you acquiesce to _helping me_," his mouth nearly sang these two words at me, "then the guard will return you here. If you refuse, as you are so sure you will do, the guard will torture you. And fifty-five minutes later, he will return." The Dark Lord offered me one last manipulative glance. "Good night, Hermione."

He left, and I was alone, staring into where he'd gone, trying to see through to nothingness. The first man came back, the one with robes that sounded like wind, if I remembered what wind sounded like. Thoughts sped in a meaningless blur around my mind, creating a vortex, suffocating me, trapping me in a pointless loop of indecision and turmoil. Chaos was my mind and my soul and my heart and my breath—

We were back, back to the dreaded door that blocked out the light. I stood in front of it as the man with sandy-hair-going-grey held the door open. I gaped like the fish my eyes resembled. He pushed me in and I fell to the ground by my 'bed.'

"See you in the morning," was the last thing I heard as he slammed the door and brought me back—

here. I am where I was, where I always have been. Hopeless, disordered—and now, with words. With thoughts. With syntax and reality and decisions—

No, not decisions, one decision. One one _one_ decision that will be easy for me to make, because I am Hermione Granger—

My cell feels smaller when I say this, but I say it anyway—

I am Hermione Granger, and I cannot betray everyone I love, everyone who is still alive, everyone who is dead. I am Hermione Granger.

I pause as I wait for my mind to begin its slow digression toward pondering what a name is, what a person is, what reality is, and how nothing is real at all in my little ink blot world.

But I'm still Hermione Granger. And my cell is still my cell, agonizingly as real as I am, as my stench is, as this hard floor is—and is it? Is it darker now that my eyes have seen light?

I was blind, but now I can't see! I want—I didn't used to want—but I want—I can't--!

Words topple through my mind like falling rocks in a landslide. I'm crashing. I'm sitting. I'm not moving and I'm suffocating—dying—but alive, oh, god, I'm still alive. How can I be alive when I'm not in the world? Everything's gone and I feel nothing and I see nothing and I am nothing. How can I be Hermione Granger when I'm not alive?

I am alive!

I am alive, I am alive, I am alive.

I am alive I am alive I am alive alive alive alive

and the door swings open and light comes in like an old friend with bad news. But I'm sick and can't she come again later? cough cough.

He won't come back later. He's here, now, with wand in hand, standing above my collapsed form, asking me a question.

And I hear myself say, "No."

I don't know how I said the word so firmly when I've been unable to think anything firmly, but just as I am congratulating myself he moves his wand in a swift motion.

I wanted to feel something? I wanted reality? I wanted to be alive in the world?

My body shudders on the ground, epilepsing manically. Pain shoots through every synapse of my brain; every word I think is painful. Every struggling gasp I heave is painful. Every jump my tired muscles make is excruciating and it's time, timeless, classic in its intensity. It will never leave me, this pain is all there is for me, another kind of deprivation, I'm alone, scattered_, pain—_

"I'll do it!"

and it's over. I'm just laying on the ground in a small puddle of light. I'm immobile, I'm broken, I don't know how to move anymore. He scoops me up and I can't feel the pain I know my body feels. He murmurs something like, "good girl," and we're down the hall again, my eyes closed this time because I don't want to see. I'm in a ball, I'm clutching onto his robes, onto my captor; he pulls my talons away from him, as he is no doubt disgusted by me. I am dropped down onto the bed and he walks away from me, brushing my remains off of those windy brown robes of his. As he is closing this door he says,

"Welcome home."


	3. Chapter 3

Spellbound

Chapter 3

I may have been dead, and I wouldn't have known. At that point, all I heard, felt, knew were the sobs tearing through my body. The room was blurred by my crying; I didn't know which way was up because of how I thrashed my body in the pillows; I didn't hear anything that may have been happening. I still don't know if anyone was in the room when I arrived, or if I was being watched at all.

I have said before how useless time is to me. It was still true then, and I don't know how long I carried on my fit, or how long afterwards I laid there, shell-shocked and too numb to move. The first coherent thought I had was that the bedcovers were very soft.

Only the best for Lord Voldemort's _guests_.

With that in mind, I finally got up to see the room I had been put in.

It was a bedroom, like any other bedroom. If I hadn't known better, I would have expected it to be in a middle class family's house instead of inside this fort of evil. There were a bed, a bathroom, and in one corner there were some book shelves and two chairs. One door led to the parlor I was first brought to; the opposite door in that room was heavily warded. There was a second door to my bedroom, as well, and it, too, was well fortified.

I decided it was a far more comfortable prison.

I sat on the bed again, not knowing what else to do. My eyes were drawn up, as if someone had called my name; I saw across the room. The bookshelves looked at me with loathing—I could tangibly feel them judging me, mocking the brainless shell of a girl I had become. I could see the scowl formed by the titles on book spines; I could almost hear the sneers whispering between their pages, what a traitor I was, reaping the benefits of my betrayal.

The other door in my bedroom opened with a loud sound, and my head spun around. A man stood in the doorway, one I had not seen before. He looked to be about thirty or forty, was of average height, with dark hair and eyes. He strolled in.

"Ah, up already, are we?" He asked in a pleasant tenor.

Apparently it was morning again.

He was almost to my bed when he spoke again. "I am here to heal your injuries so you're in perfect health for your research." He looked at me as if expecting a reply.

I didn't give him one.

"My name is Zacharias Covington."

Again, he left a pause for me to speak. This time I took advantage of it.

"My injuries?" I asked, not knowing to what extent I was harmed.

"Quite. Let's see... " he began digging in a bag he'd brought, pulling out brightly colored potions in oddly shaped vials. "Aha! This one first."

He handed me an hourglass shaped bottle and I took it in one long swig.

"For the dehydration." He explained.

He gave me another, which I similarly took unquestioningly.

"For malnutrition." His manner was growing steadily less cheery.

He dug out his wand and casually pushed up his over-long sleeves. I could see the bottom of his Dark Mark. He then waved his wand over my hunched-over form. "For the external injuries from the cruciatus." Apparently I had thrashed around quite a bit.

He began to pack up his things, explaining meanwhile:

"Well, that's all for now, though I'm sure some regular supplements will keep you in ship-shape, after what you've been through." He looked at me again, to gauge my reaction. "Yes, that's all I have. Mahler will no doubt have some information for you when he comes with breakfast—Tarquinius Mahler? The man who brought you here?"

Again, I gave no reply.

"Yes. Well. I'll be on my way then, unless there's any particular question you have?"

"What's the date?" How long had I been living in purgatory?

He seemed surprised. "Oh—I thought, relating to—well, never mind, it's December twenty-eighth, 1998."

So I was nineteen, then.

Picking up his bag, the man—Zacharias Covington—ambled out of my room. He paused in the doorway—

"Also, I rather recommend a bath. Never underestimate how it can make you feel!"

And then he was gone.

And I was dirty.

For the first time, I cared. Perhaps it was because when Voldemort and the blond man—Mahler?—called me filthy, I had expected it. I didn't want to help them by being palatable.

But Zacharias Covington recommended it to make me feel better.

And I was filthy.

In the bathroom were the necessary toiletries, laid out by a thoughtful host. My body moved, preparing the bath, gathering up a towel and soap like it had always done.

It occured to me later that one would expect me to furiously scrub as if I could rip the months spent in that prison from my skin, as if I could kill Voldemort with softly scented soap bubbles if I tried hard enough. I did not do this.

I bathed gently, three times. At first it was difficult; the layers of grime on my body were unenthusiastic about leaving down the drain. But then the tub was drained and refilled with cleaner water, and I was cleaner, and at it again. My hair, this time, was the focus. I used regular soap to cut through the matted mess, massaging through to my tired and abused scalp. It hurt to be so gentle. I think it hurt more to be kind to my body than it would have to cut through all the filth with a knife. I bathed one more time, with water that was fresher still, before I used the soft towels that were provided.

It felt like I had just been born. I was naked, away from my sheltered covering, wrapped in the soft towel that may as well have been a receiving blanket. I was tired from the birth, exhausted to be in this new world—and then I realized I didn't have anything else to wear.

I hadn't yet relearned the necessity of foresight.

I stood, again, timelessly, still like a statue and uncertain like a newborn faun on wobbly legs. After a time I noticed a door in the bathroom I hadn't seen before. I opened it; it was a closet, filled with a variety of nondescript but nonetheless clean clothes. It would seem that everything for my arrival was anticipated. The longer I paid attention to my new quarters, the less they seemed to be generic guest quarters.

The clothes didn't have a tailoring spell applied to them, and everything was my size.

I dressed what felt like quickly and went back to my bedroom to see him waiting for me.

I hated him. I saw the murderer of my friends, of my life, of my hope standing before me and I knew that I hated him. It was only later I realized that perhaps the reason I hated him so surely when nothing else in my mind was sure was that there was something more.

Something I had forgotten at that moment.

He stood there in my small room, taking up space and energy, the only thing I could see. He had the power to do that. I've wondered since then if he used a spell to get that effect, of if that is simply what happens when one uses such intense dark magic.

Or perhaps it is simply what happens when one conquers the world.

He did not speak, but motioned for me to sit on the bed. He took the wing chair facing it.

He sat. I did not. He spoke anyway.

"I suppose you're wondering what on earth I could use you for. You're half-starved, more than half-crazed, and still a teenager, if I'm not mistaken. What use could I ever have for an infant mudblood, however intelligent she may have proved to be in the past?"

I was beginning to find power in my silences. I indulged in quiet again, and he continued speaking:

"You will not be researching dark curses, hexes, or horcruxes for me, Hermione Granger. I have other, far more dependable servants to find that sort of information for me. You will be researching yourself."

"Myself?" I asked, my voice still gratingly hoarse, from my seat on the bed.

His face was unreadable, his glittering eyes the only thing that betrayed his interest. I was reminded of dragons in fairy stories, guarding the gold and jewels of their hoard with starry covetousness. "Mudbloods don't have power like you. Oh, we've found they're perfectly capable of being _average_, but nothing more. Half bloods tend to be powerful, at least above average, and purebloods come in a variety of flavors."

I did not miss how he talked about people like they were objects or pawns, and I got the feeling that's what he wanted me to realize. He was watching me with those darkened eyes of his—I watched back, no longer timid in the steadfastness of his gaze.

"You, however—you don't fit in with any test group, you don't match any result, and therefore you either are not a mudblood, or, you are something else entirely."

"So because I don't blend in with your predjudiced, orchestrated 'test' results, I am a freak? Is it so hard to believe you're wrong?" The words fell heatedly from my mouth quicker than I could think them.

"Hermione Granger..." He was smiling, I was sure of it—"The tests weren't predjudiced, or else no one would've found that half-bloods are powerful; that would imply mudbloods have a place, at least in securing the future. And average? You really think I would accuse a group of being average to demean them?" He scoffed, or made a noise close to it. "All the researchers were either killed or quarantined to do more research. They knew this would happen regardless of the results. I assure, their findings were absolutely confidential. And absolutely accurate."

He took a pause here to say something, but ignored it and carried on. "So I realized I had here, in my very own dungeon, an immensely talented, a remarkably intelligent witch just wasting away from_ boredom_, and I thought, what a _waste!_" His voice was oddly animated; his eyes were glassy and taunting. "Why, I could kill her, and free up the high commodity dungeon space, or else I could use her to further my research, to find out just _what_ this _one_ exception to my findings _is_."

"What I am?" My words were neutral, bland, and monotoned reflexively.

"Yes." His voice tripped over the previous soliloquy and now strung luxuriously across this one word. He said nothing else, forcing me to speak.

"And... I have everything I need?"

His head tilted slightly before he answered. "The books on this case and the ones in the parlor are the most relevant; if you know of any others that may assist you, you can request them of Mahler when he brings your meals. The desk in the parlor has parchment and ink. You may not have a wand, at least—not while you're still so... _fragile_." He stood, looking down at me. "I'll return in a fortnight. I trust you'll have interesting things to tell me."

He left, I was alone, I was clothed and clean. I was on the bed sitting comfortably. I was in a well-lit room.

There was a knock on the door. The man called Mahler entered.

And I was about to be fed.


	4. Chapter 4

**Spellbound**

Chapter 4

I'm special?

This question glides across my mind from time to time, even now, whispering seductive mischief like the dangerous friend every parent fears her child will find. After a while it stopped being a question, but the fact of it remained:

I am special.

All my life I've had to prove myself, to prove that We, Muggleborns, are just as capable as any pureblood, that we have every right to magic, that we can be extraordinary!

And so we can be—included that is, not, apparently, special.

My grief for the sobering news Voldemort gave me didn't last long. My heart did not shatter when I learned the results of his study; instead, I held the delicate treasure of my identity close enough that my grief didn't matter at all.

It is with disbelief and dangerous reverence I hold that thought even now, as I have nothing left to live for except the promise of my existence—

I'm special.

Tarquinius Mahler came in after his brief rap on the door to find me sitting numb and silent on the bed.

"Well, at least you're clean now. Are you ever going to get your brain back?" he spoke as if to himself.

My head turned swiftly as I answered, "While I don't have the incredibly difficult and stimulating job of butler and food-deliverer, I do think there is some hope for me yet, Mr. Mahler."

He was shocked for a moment, but quickly recovered. With a grin he said, "Perhaps." He set the tray of food he brought on the desk and turned back to me, "Although, technically I'm not your butler, in spite of how it appears."

I studied him, the memory of shrewdness returning to me. "So what, technically, are you?"

"I was awarded the great honor of being your guard by the Dark Lord himself. He asked me to also fulfill the more... tedious roles you need so you wouldn't feel like a prisoner during your stay."

"Thoughtful of him. What do you mean awarded the honor?"

His eyes took on a teasing glint then, and his tone was light as he took a casual bounce into the seat behind him. "Don't you know? There's quite the talk about you around here, being the only thing to disprove the Dark Lord's study. We're all wondering just what you are." He studied me intently for a moment. "I'm the lucky one who gets to find out first hand."

"I thought—I thought the study wasn't public."

"It isn't. Only the Dark Lord and his Inner Circle know the results." The light green of his eyes glinted.

"But... I don't remember your name, I mean, I knew who all the Inner Circle were..." I glanced at him uncertainly.

"You've been in the dark for quite some time, Hermione." He pulled the desk chair out for me. "Sit now. You should eat your breakfast before it gets cold."

I sat down and regarded him as I ate my meal. He was younger than I'd thought before, probably about thirty-five. The only grey in his hair were two distinguished patches on either temple, and the wrinkles I saw before seemed like the kind gotten from squinting too hard into the sun. He had a weathered look about him that reminded me of antique furniture in posh magazines.

"Can I get a window?" I asked abruptly through a bite of my food.

"What?"

"A window—it doesn't have to be a real one, it can be enchanted to look like somewhere else, only, I want to know what time of day it is."

"You have a clock."

"Yes, but I don't have a sun. Please? Surely it's no trouble to enchant a small window? Give me back my wand and I'll do it myself!"

I don't know what made me ask, or even what made me think of it. All that time without sunlight, without star shine, without knowing the basic movements that govern most beings on earth—all of that Time built up in the pores of my soul and burst out into that question, into that blossoming need. Mahler thought for a moment.

"I don't think you'll soon be getting your wand back, but I don't see what harm a fake window could be."

I smiled up at him. He looked taken aback. "Are you done with that?"

I nodded, and he reached for the tray.

_I smiled up at him? _My thoughts coalesced in a crash. I smiled at my captor? My guard? Oh, I didn't say anything, but I was thanking him with that smile—thanking him for the _gift_ of seeing sunlight!

I think he saw me tense up, or read the realization on my face. He paused by my face when he was bringing up the tray, just an inch too close to me. "It's a wonder what baths can do," he said softly. "Have a good day, Hermione."

He walked across the room and was opening the door when I replied tensely, "You, too. And thank you."

Then he was gone.

There have been few times in my life that I have not wanted to escape from something. The war, my social awkwardness, my parents' overbearing attention, never being understood as a child witch in a muggle world—never can I remember not wanting to hide away between lines of text on a page, to discover the significance of theories and studies so I could ignore the insignificance of my own contributions. Reading, research, compiling information to make sense of something in a world where seldom do things ever make sense—

this was all as natural to me as breathing, as practiced as sleep.

He was gone, and the books remained.

I set to work.

It was an odd topic, and broad. Where to begin? What am I. Last I thought about it, I was a human witch, a muggleborn, daughter of two dentists. But apparently I defy natural law. I could start with magical interference—I could assume I was born the way I'd been told, in normal circumstances, and somewhere down the line, presumably when I was a child, I was exposed to a spell or curse that somehow amplified my power...

I looked into the books on power amplification spells and wasn't sure I'd ever be able to look back. The writings were the darkest things I've ever thought about, they were nightmares, they were horror stories told like fact. Nearly all of them required lives to be sacrificed by someone; few even spoke of ways to amplify someone other than the caster's power. The only ones that did required a potion to be imbibed during a certain phase of the moon in an elaborate ritual.

I recalled neither being a particularly morbid four-year-old, nor participating in such an act. One branch of options was discarded.

Two days had gone by at this point; Mahler came and went three times daily, but never did we have as long a conversation as on his first visit. He seemed reluctant to interrupt my unceasing research, and I was unable to stop. Zacharias Covington came by once more to administer medicinal potions, but I kept reading through his visit. My mind seized whatever reminder of more sensible times it could and would not let go. I would not research for Voldemort—but myself? What moral quandaries could one have when studying about one's own existence? How could that possibly be wrong enough to prefer death? I know I was making excuses... but it was escape that I was reading, sanity that I was learning.

So I moved on to the next possibility: I'm not muggleborn at all.

This test went rather quickly. It took half a day to find a spell that proves whether a witch or wizard is muggleborn, and about ten minutes to complete it. The spell was actually quite interesting: while magic is evidenced in all witches' and wizards' blood, no matter their heritage, this spell actually used the muggle premise of DNA to find if that magic was there by mutation or if it was passed on from similarly magical parents. I performed the test:

I am muggleborn. My magic is the result of a random mutation. There had been no secret adoption or kidnapping or child-switch.

Two days passed when I had no idea what to do. I began reaching for books at random, analyzed spells that had no mention at all of children, power increases, muggleborns, or anything else that seemed relevant. I looked for ways random spells could be applied to have a result that might cause _me_ as a result to something else—

the next time Mahler came, I asked him for a headache potion.

"Lost?" he asked.

"When you're lost you can always get a map. There are cases of atlases in this room but nothing to help me." I closed the tome I was reading with a dull thud and laid my head dejectedly on top of it.

"Well that's hardly the attitude to have. Particularly when I have a present for you."

My attention was piqued. "Present?"

Only after I said this did I realize how easily I was falling into the roll of the submissive. I stood taller and ignored the glint in Mahler's eyes.

"Yes. I present: The Sun." With a flourish of his wand against one of the walls of my room, a hole began to form—gradually it grew, and around it decorative panes began to form.

He stopped. I saw. I forgot about everything but the sun setting over snow-topped hills, prisms of color settling into the tall far-off trees... I forgot that Mahler stood there, watching me as I saw true light for the first time in more than a year. I stepped slowly towards the window until my fingers were upon the glass, not believing that such a real world could exist.

"The Dark Lord will return in nine days. Just a reminder before I go." I abandoned my view to watch him walk away with a curt nod of his head. "Good bye, Hermione."

He never stayed for long, but I always felt like he had more to say than what he did.

I stood there for several minutes looking out the window and feeling as if it were looking back at me.

I was gazing through the window Mahler had created.

I saw the hills and the snow and the trees because they were in a window which was made...

_Made_... by Mahler.

Abruptly I turned back to my bookshelves, struck by thought and frantic on the precipice of knowledge. I hunted, scoured, ripped through the books I had studied earlier until I found it—

A tiny volume called simply, "On Power."

I could feel the answer weighing lightly in my hands. The delicate pages ruffled softly as I tore through them, and I could see the page I needed before it was opened—small, cramped text beneath an illustration—vague lines forming a man, something swirling around him, and then an unintelligible form to his side—

I reread the text. And then again.

All this time, he had known what "I am." He was just fucking with me, he was using me as his fact-checker. He wanted me to discover the traitorousness of my existence for myself. He wanted me to want to know and to be the destroyer of my own soul.

And I knew the information was right when I couldn't wait to see him.

I threw the book across the room.

All I had to do was wait nine more days.


	5. Chapter 5

**Spellbound,** Chapter 5

"I hate you."

"Hate? Don't you think that's a bit ungrateful to the person who created you?"

"My _parents_ created me!" I spat the words at the subtle curves of his pale face.

"And yet they were barren for years, weren't they, Hermione? You were a miracle to them. To the natural world. You see, they couldn't have children- because the children they would've created would have been an anomaly to the physical world. There are rules, Hermione. And nature doesn't like to break them." He took a step towards me. I didn't move. "But on very special occasions, reserved for very special wizards, nature can be... forced."

I looked stonily up at him, and the distance between us in my new cell became static. Time buzzed through our perifery and lost its purpose. He was the center of my tunnel vision. "_Personis Illuminati."_ The syllables dripped from my mouth onto the room's soft carpet, making a mess.

The simple arch of his smile drew my eyes and my fury. "Yes," he said, and made the air around him vibrate. He made the magic in the air around us both shimmer. My eyes clouded with some moisture as I walked backwards to sit clumsily on the bed. His bed. "Yes, I used the _Personis Illuminati_. It was only recently that I became aware of how it chose to manifest itself, however. I must say, I had almost forgotten about it. What has it been... twenty years?" He hid the glint in his up-turned eyes as he moved to sit in the arm chair across from me.

"Twenty years. That sounds right. Am I to believe you performed an intricate, painful dark arts spell without even knowing what it would do? That doesn't sound very wise. You would've been weakened for months after- you wouldn't have had your full power for perhaps a year! You would've been so vulnerable that-"

"That my own spell, rebounded by a baby, could end me?" I stared at him dumbly. I needed him to leave nothing assumed, to leave nothing misunderstood.

"It was quite a sucessful spell, Hermione. Not many who try it are fortunate enough to be so drained. I did not return to full power for at least one year and ten months. After that... well, your knowledge of this war's history should let you know I was not in any state to wave a wand. Thank Merlin for Horcruxes." He was being flippant to goad me. His eyes watched me from the side as he strode to look out the window. He considered my artificial landscape.

"You're wrong, however. I did know what the spell would do. I just didn't know how it would do it."

He was next to me on the bed. I felt the inhuman softness of the back of his hand on the side of my face. "And here you are..." The tenderness and awe in his voice was new. I didn't want to think it was an act- not when that soft skin was moving slowly down my neck, framing me out like I was a sculpter's masterpiece. Venus de Milo, looking askance at her creator. He moved breath inside of his body for effect. "My Hermione. I asked for you, and here you are."

"The book was obscure when it spoke of the spell. I would appreciate your candor." My stiff body leaned away from his.

"My candor. Of course, my dear. I am unused to granting my subjects explanations." No softness of words could conceal the malignant power coming from him. It ate me up, bit away at the cloud of my cognizance until I was a seed of fear at the bottom of my own stomach.

"It was 1978, and I was at my peak. Until now, of course. I thought I was seconds away from conquoring the magical world. But those seconds stretched onward. Nothing changed. Our battles with the ministry, with the Order, were all stalemates in the big picture of our success or failure." He chuckled at some memory I was not privy to. "So I decided to become more.

"It was an expected step, really. I had been busy creating and hiding horcruxes since I was a teenager, and I was at that point well-secure with six objects- seven soul parts, counting what was in my body. A perfect security. A magic security. But still I was not content." He strode over to my bookshelf and plucked what he wanted from the shelves. "_On Power_. Isn't that a tantalizing name?"

I think he was growing tired of my silences.

"Quite." I cleared my voice of cobwebs. "It got my attention."

"Quite," he drawled, as his fingers traced the embossed cover. "The _Personis Illuminati_ promises a compliment to one's magic; a catalyst for individual spells, and an augmented link to permanantly boost one's power. The vessel of the Illuminati is said to act precisely as needed it's creator needs- whether that means bringing certain events to fruition, or effecting the people around it to benefit the creator. Usually the vessel is a wizard's familiar. As you know, bonds like this are what differentiate familiars from regular pets. This particular spell, however... Due to its dark nature and its antiquity, it is seldom used for such arrangements. You see, this spell creates the familiar. In the womb of a cat, let's say, the perfect cat who would have the perfect complimentary personality, the cat who would be of the exactly complimentary circumstances- and who would come about at the perfect time- this cat- hypothetically- would be imbued with a piece of its master's magic, and would be permanantly linked to him from the moment of its birth."

I remember blinking emphatically to see if the room around me kept existing. "You're saying I'm your cat?"

That pale curve graced his mouth once again as he returned to face me in the arm chair. "The cat was an example. It is the most common familiar for a reason, Hermione. It is generally non-magical, and physically it is both common and simple. The average witch or wizard has no problem creating a link with a creature such as this. The more complex animals, and especially magical animals, are far more rare. Surely you remember Fawkes, dear Professor Dumbledore's pheonix?"

"Fawkes was linked to Dumbledore? Did he create him?"

"I doubt that dear Albus stooped so low as to use the _Illuminati_ spell, but I have no doubt they were magically connected. Didn't you find it strange all the times Fawkes magically appeared to do just what Dumbledore would've wanted him to do? Animals have free will. Familiars feel that they do, perhaps, but their will is always to the benefit of their masters."

"None of this changes the fact that I am a _human witch_!" My anger was outing itself now, as I gathered his meaning. The air crackled once more, but I wasn't sure which of us riled the magic up to such a state. I could see he found my impotent anger amusing.

"Never before have I heard of such an occurance. The weakest wizard- or even a squib- has more inherant power than any other magical creature, except perhaps a vampire or veela. Reasonably powerful wizards have more power than anything."

I stared blankly into his dark eyes. "I am not your cat."

"You see how easily everything you choose to do pleases me? You know what to say to make me smile, Hermione Granger. No one has seen me smile this often since I left the charade of Tom Riddle." He stood, and made his way across my room. "You're mine, Hermione. My perfect match. My augmentation and my completion. Do whatever you'd like, my dear. For whatever you do, it can only prove that you were born to serve me."

He left the room and the door closed with a loud creak. I dove off the bed and towards my desk in the parlor. With one swift motion my arm vaulted books and parchment and candlesticks across the floor. With a circular motion I brought down the chair. I violently threw dark arts books into the fireplace, knowing they wouldn't catch fire, not caring to care. A scream tore itself from my throat as I challenged the rest of the room. I collapsed onto the sofa, beating pillows indiscriminately as my anger burst within me, ceasing steadily as an eerie apathy gripped my beating heart with mocking. Beat, beat, beat. Beat, beat, beat. Then Stillness.

"I am nobody's cat."


End file.
